San Jose police open second investigation into teen who stowed away on Hawaii flight

The same day new video was released of a teen stowaway emerging from the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines jetliner after a perilous transpacific flight, San Jose police announced Tuesday they are launching a second investigation into the incident.

“In an attempt to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, San Jose Police are attempting to set up an interview with the juvenile,” authorities said in a statement released Tuesday.

Police said they’ll turn over their report to the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office and consult with San Jose city officials to determine if charges are warranted.

Police, who initially said they did not intend to charge the stowaway, must now schedule a meeting with the teen's attorney for the interview.

The boy, 15-year-old Yahya Abdi, returned to California over the weekend after weeks in Maui, where he was spotted walking on the tarmac April 20. The teen, who had been under the care of Hawaii’s family services, has since been transferred to Santa Clara County Child Protective Services, police said.

The slight teenager, first seen on a security camera video, would not appear...

The dark of night still draped San Jose Mineta International Airport when a 15-year-old boy from nearby Santa Clara made his way on to a secure airport ramp and toward a Hawaiian AirlinesBoeing 767, then disappeared.

The slight teenager, first seen on a security camera video, would not appear...

(Kate Mather, Joseph Serna and James Rainey)

The airport surveillance video released Tuesday shows Abdi exiting a wheel well of the Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767 after surviving the 5 1/2-hour flight from San Jose.

The youth can be seen walking along the tarmac, where airport and airline employees saw him wandering.

He told FBI and airport officials he had sneaked into the San Jose airport and entered the rear left wheel well of the jetliner for the trip.

Hawaii stowaway

Chris Sugidono / Associated Press

The 15-year-old who stowed away on a flight to Maui is wheeled into an ambulance after being discovered wandering the tarmac April 20.

The 15-year-old who stowed away on a flight to Maui is wheeled into an ambulance after being discovered wandering the tarmac April 20. (Chris Sugidono / Associated Press)

Officials said he was apparently trying to reunite with his mother after learning that she was alive. His father reportedly told him she had died.

His mother, Ubah Mohamed Adbdullahi, spoke to Voice of America radio from a refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia, saying she believed that her son had risked his life trying to reach her.

Authorities called the teen's trip and survival a “miracle.”

The wheel well of the Boeing 767 is not pressurized or heated, and he was subjected to extremely thin air and temperatures as low as 80 degrees below zero when the plane cruised at 38,000 feet.